Separators may be used in various industries such as the food industry, cleaning industry, waste water treatment, and others. The vibratory separator may include a generally horizontal table or an angled table with a perforated filter screen bottom. Fluid is deposited at the feed end of the vibratory separator. As the fluid travels along the length of the vibrating table, the fluid falls through the perforations in a separation screen to a reservoir below, leaving the solid particulate material behind. The vibrating action of the vibratory separator table conveys solid particles left behind to a discharge end of the separator table. The above described apparatus is illustrative of one type of vibratory separator known to those of ordinary skill in the art. In alternate vibratory separators, the feed end of the separator may be relatively closer to the ground than the discharge end. In such vibratory separators, the angle of inclination may require the movement of particulates in a generally upward direction. In still other vibratory separators, the table may not be angled, thus the vibrating action of the separator alone may enable particle/fluid separation. Regardless, table inclination and/or design variations of existing vibratory separators should not be considered a limitation of the present disclosure.
In the oilfield industry, drilling fluid, often called “mud,” serves multiple purposes in the industry. Among its many functions, the drilling mud acts as a lubricant to cool rotary drill bits and facilitate faster cutting rates. Typically, the mud is mixed at the surface and pumped downhole at high pressure to the drill bit through a bore of the drill string. Once the mud reaches the drill bit, it exits through various nozzles and ports where it lubricates and cools the drill bit. After exiting through the nozzles, the “spent” fluid returns to the surface through an annulus formed between the drill string and the drilled wellbore.
In addition to cooling the bit, the drilling mud carries the cuttings away from the drill bit at the bottom of the borehole to the surface. As a drill bit pulverizes or scrapes the rock formation at the bottom of the borehole, small pieces of solid material are left behind. The drilling fluid exiting the nozzles at the bit acts to stir-up and carry the solid particles of rock and formation to the surface within the annulus between the drill string and the borehole. Therefore, the fluid exiting the borehole from the annulus is a slurry of formation cuttings in drilling mud. Before the mud can be recycled and re-pumped down through nozzles of the drill bit, the cutting particulates are removed by a separator, such as a vibratory separator.